


the brain's demotion

by MiniInfinity



Series: emotion [1]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, there's like a flash of verkwan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 10:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11228781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniInfinity/pseuds/MiniInfinity
Summary: Soonyoung has Seokmin forever as an old life revived.





	the brain's demotion

**Author's Note:**

> i'd like to warn that there are mentions-ish of death throughout this thing  
> and that i edited this once so maybe like...prepare your eyes

"Graduation is in seven hours," Soonyoung mutters when Seokmin walks in, glances at Seokmin's reflection on the bathroom mirror. Soonyoung lifts his hands up to the collars of his uniform shirt over the bathroom sink and turns to find his black gown hanging from the open closet door.

 

Years passed, sleepless nights with the dance studio lights instead of stars outside his window, perspiration hanging from his jaw feeling a lot heavier than the fatigue in his arms and legs, and a sigh leaves Soonyoung's lips when he finished through them all with Seokmin still at his side.

 

Seokmins steps besides Soonyoung and budges his shoulder, nearly sending Soonyoung sitting on the toilet seat and a curse at the brink of his tongue. Seokmin pulls Soonyoung back up straight and lifts a hand, cards his own fingers softly through Soonyoung's hair. "After graduation, you'll be a university graduate and you can start teaching people how to dance," Seokmin assures him with a smile. Soonyoung lifts a hand to arrange his necktie, but Seokmin swats it away as soon as his fingertips reach the bottom. "You've been tying these for years and yet, you suddenly forget?" Seokmin teases as he does the last buttons of Soonyoung's shirt and grabs on the two ends of the necktie. "Let me do it for you."

 

It's been a long while since Seokmin fixed Soonyoung's tie, but it all feels the same, his eyes, when looking straight ahead, never going past the comforting pink of Seokmin's smile and sharp curve of his nose after all of these years.

 

\----

 

Soonyoung's voice falters at the wrong moments, punctuated by little rushes when he should be taking time to breathe. Barely holds on and almost collapses all together when he speeds through the rehearsal dates a venue and _no one seems to be stressed, why am I the only one?_ He thought he would be excited for this, he should be excited for this, to lead others in a dance crafted from the roots of his own mind.

 

"My first performance is in two weeks. Can you come?"

 

"Of course," Seokmin half-whispers, half-sighs into the phone.

 

\----

 

Soonyoung holds onto Seokmin's face in his hands, thumbs running over moist skin, and tilts the taller's head down. His voice flattens, forcing Seokmin to look at him without saying so. Seokmin breathes hard, mumbles something about auditioning, _my voice will crack because I'm crying right now I can't let it crack, what if they don't accept me?_

 

Soonyoung's voice ghosts over his cries. "It's your first audition, Seokmin. Almost everyone has to go for a second, third, fourth audition, and it's completely okay. It will be fine because after this one, you will know what you can do to help you do better at the next one. First times are the worst."

 

Seokmin wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, inhaling, exhaling. Inhaling again. "Will you be there in the room? When I audition?"

 

Soonyoung nods, coaxes a smile from Seokmin's face with the one on his own. "I'll be there, Seokmin. Look for me, okay?"

 

Seokmin's head bobs in what Soonyoung thinks is his best nod during the entire day.

 

\----

 

"My dance studio is having its grand opening next week. Do you want to see it?"

 

"Of course. I'll be right next to you when you cut the ribbon."

 

\----

 

"Will you be there when I arrive at the airport?" Seokmin's face distorts against the pixels of Soonyoung's phone screen. The brightness is at its lowest at the other side, yet Seokmin squints a little against the midnight walls of their apartment back home. Seokmin nods, smooth and gentle blinks of his eyes trying to stay awake, and it takes a lot for Soonyoung to not apologize for keeping Seokmin awake during this awful hour, even though they promised this weeks ago. Half of his nod sinks to his pillow, but Soonyoung laughs, right under sunlight draining through open blinds. "Will you be there to kiss me when I see you for the first time in months, like they do in movies?"

 

An airy snort leaves Seokmin's nose as he smiles, and there's nothing more that he wants to do than swim straight back home and stomp into their room and demand an apology from Seokmin. "Why are you so cheesy?"

 

Soonyoung puckers his lips and waits for the hundreds-of-thousands-of-miles kiss.

 

\----

 

"Will you be there at my graduation?" Seokmin runs a hand down the front of his own gown before Soonyoung notices his grip bleeding white from clenching his hands in a grip for nothing. The pout on his lips brings Soonyoung's steps closer to him and lips kissing it right off.

 

"Of course," Soonyoung says, dragging a flat palm across Seokmin's dress shirt on the ironing board below the two. He smiles as he turns down, folds down the collars of the crooked shirt.

 

Soonyoung feels the hard bone of Seokmin's jaw on his shoulder, a light press of lips on his neck, and a hum right under the shell of his ear. "What if I trip when they call my name?"

 

Soonyoung smiles because he knows there's a chance, higher than for anyone else. "I'll yell for you so hard that they'll escort me off the university."

 

\----

 

"Will you be there on our wedding day?"

 

"Well, duh, I _am_ the other half getting married," Seokmin says, hand reaching over to lightly slap Soonyoung's arm as they walk down the street and into the city's biggest flower shop.

 

"Are you going to cry when we kiss or while you're still putting your suit on?"

 

Seokmin shakes his head, swings Soonyoung's hand a little higher, a little farther back. "Maybe when we say our vows. So in between both?"

 

\----

 

Soonyoung turns on the mattress under the sheets, turns to Seokmin already grazing languid eyes--a bit lower to his nose, down to his lips. "Will you be there when I can't sleep?" seeps groggy from Soonyoung's throat, from all the other nights where he asks the same questions and still can't sleep.

 

It's stupid, he knows, because he's been living with Seokmin since college and the number of times Seokmin has been there is reaching a lot closer to infinity than he thought, but he still asks. Seokmin nods with the side of his face against the pillow, doesn't smile this time, doesn't press a hand on Soonyoung's cheek this time. "Can you sing for me?"

 

\----

 

Soonyoung holds the blanket next to him hard and he brushes the thought of ripping the blanket right there with his nails alone.

 

_Will you be there to wake me up in the morning. You're always awake earlier than I am._

 

\----

 

Soonyoung doesn't remember when the last time he got a good night's sleep but then again, he doesn't remember much about his days when they don't include sitting at his laptop with a mumbling, concerned Seokmin perched at his bedside. The back of Seokmin's arm unlatches open across the middle and lies flat on the desk besides the screen, a near-human flesh shielding color-coded wires, sparks of electricity, a welcome and goodbye to malfunctioning commands, years of endless codes that Soonyoung built up himself, a walking form of his progress.

 

"Soonyoung, it's been nineteen hours and thirty-four minutes since you last slept," Seokmin mutters, almost breathes, as Soonyoug types away. "Or closed your eyes for at least five minutes."

 

Soonyoung sighs but doesn't slip a glance at Seokmin's direction. He can already see the pink pout of Seokmin's lips when he tells him, "Just one more string, okay? Then I'm done for the night."

 

"You said that twenty-six strings ago, though."

 

Soonyoung does see the pout in Seokmin's face when he slaps a glare at the android, but he knows Seokmin can't do much about it. It's how most nights end, anyway.

 

 

Soonyoung manages to convince Seokmin that he will sleep, after promising him that he will shut his laptop down but not before sending Seokmin to recharge for the next day. But Soonyoung doesn't know if Seokmin can detect the lie in Soonyoung, notice the waver in Soonyoung's voice or the jump in his heart rate or the rise of temperature in his body.

 

Soonyoung thinks that it's all just something wrong in his code, something he missed when his eyes weighed more than careless presses across his keyboard.

 

\----

 

"Your friends called you this morning and left a voicemail." Seokmin pours foamy milk into Soonyoung's coffee, lets white tendrils curl into light brown to pass the silence between them.

 

"Okay," after Seokmin slides the mug across the kitchen counter, swerves past the laptop, and into his palms.

 

"Can't you just listen to one? Because the memory in your phone is running out."

 

"Okay, fine."

 

A deep voice tumbles from the speaker. _Hey, Soonyoung. Mingyu and I are gonna go out and eat. Do you and Seokmin want to come?_

 

Soonyoung looks up from the long scrolls on his screen, stops typing for a second to find Seokmin wandering around the apartment. For once, Soonyoung considers tagging along with Wonwoo and Mingyu. "Do you want to go?"

 

"Soonyoung," Seokmin says flatly, "Wonwoo sent that ten days ago."

 

"Oh." Soonyoung's eyes flit back to the screen, feeling guilty that he missed an opportunity to go out and leave his home. "Well, I listened to one. Are you happy now?"

 

"No, I'm not." Soonyoung catches Seokmin looking away. "I can't be."

 

Soonyoung scoffs, goes back to typing. "Not like I can go back in time" dissipates too thickly, too slowly into the tense air.

 

\----

 

They've forgiven each other not long after Soonyoung found Seokmin already lifting his shirt up to plug himself in for the next day that night. Morning rises later and sunbreak barely making it over the horizon has Soonyoung wondering if he should skip today’s meeting.

 

"Does it really matter if I have a heart or not?" Seokmin whispers as Soonyoung opens up his chest this time. His eyes fixate on Soonyoung's hands, and it takes a lot for Soonyoung to not press a palm on Seokmin's face and assure him that it doesn't matter at all. Because on the outside, everyone is against this.

 

"No, it doesn't." He digs his hand deeper into metal until he finds it, an overheated part lying where Seokmin would have a spine. "Why do you ask?"

 

"Because a heart is always what they say all humans have. It's where everyone says they feel things, but it's all in the brain. The only thing the heart does is oxidize and pump blood throughout the body. What exactly does the heart do to help you feel emotions?"

 

Soonyoung shrugs as he flips Seokmin's chest shut. "I don't know, but you just..." He wishes his brain would work right now. "Your heart reacts with your emotions. If you're shocked, you would probably stop thinking straight and at the same time, your heart beats hard and fast. If you're excited, your heart beats lightly and fast."

 

"I guess I need a heart to know what that's like," sinks in Seokmin's disappointment and Soonyoung wishes this time that he stopped himself. "What does your heart do when you're in love?"

 

"In love?"

 

Seokmin sits up and leaves his hands on his lap, running the tips of his thumbs together, a gesture he must have caught on from Soonyoung. "Yes, because that's also one thing they tell me I cannot feel."

 

"Well, I guess if you love someone and they love you back, you feel safe with them. Your heart beats softly because of them. Sometimes, your heart can beat too fast, and it all depends on why. A lot of things in love depend on why."

 

"What if your heart beats fast when you're in love? Why does it do that?"

 

"Maybe someone made you happy or excited. Sometimes, it doesn't take much for them to do that."

 

"Oh."

 

Soonyoung continues on, stares up more at the ceiling than Seokmin. "But maybe they made you nervous. It can be a good or bad nervous."

 

"What's a good-nervous?"

 

He sighs, chest caving in itself when he thinks about the last time he was this good-nervous. "Everyone says the day of the wedding. You're happy to marry the one you love, but at the same time, you don't want to ruin anything. You don't want to mess up saying the vows or cry too much too soon. There's a lot of good-nervous."

 

"I hope you feel more of the good-nervous, Soonyoung," leaves with a small smile from Seokmin's mouth.

 

"Thanks, Seokmin." He hides the tears in his eyes with a yawn at the back of his palm.

 

Seokmin runs a hand down the smooth sleeve of Soonyoung's dress shirt, fixes a button that Soonyoung probably forgot about while rushing into this choking hazard of a fashion sense. "Hey, it's been a while since I last saw you wearing a suit. Twenty-nine days, to be exact."

 

He answers quietly, "I have a meeting today, so yeah."

 

\----

 

Soonyoung's lungs take in wildfires as they jog down the park and sometimes, Seokmin stops in the middle of the path, tells him to stop, too, when he catches the pink rising up Soonyoung's neck and the pain in his legs reaching for his brain to just stop right now.

 

"Do you want to sit down?" Seokmin asks, folds his fingers through Soonyoung's sweaty, trembling ones and Soonyoung almost screams because it must be kind of disgusting, but Seokmin wouldn't know that. "You're sweating already."

 

"Shut up." Soonyoung pulls Seokmin's hand and guides his feet down the sidewalk next to the river. Waves refract the blue sky, even sends an airplane following a line of ducks before disappearing off into the flowering bushes of a river bank. "I'm okay. Let's go."

 

"Your body temperature went up to thirty-seven degrees Celsius. We can stop now and just walk."

 

 

_Please be considerate; please do not discriminate between humans and androids. Thank you and have a nice day!_

 

Soonyoung heads to this cafe near the river because Wonwoo won't stop flooding his messages with this location pinned and at one point, Mingyu decided to join in on it, too. Seokmin and Soonyoung take the other side of the table, where the low lights match with the sunlight breaching through windows, as Mingyu and Wonwoo point at the menu boards hanging above the counter.

 

Mingyu's hand barely dodges Wonwoo's nose as he tries to point at Soonyoung scooting into the seat after Seokmin. "Long time no see," Mingyu pretty much yells into the full cafe. Wonwoo drops his face into his palm and sighs with a lingering smile.

 

Soonyoung leans back on the chair, nearly hits his head at the corner of a bookshelf lined with a dotting stream of lights at the borders, and thinks this place is pretty cute.

 

Chatter tossed between old friends through steam over mugs. Wonwoo's nose crinkles at Soonyoung's jokes and Mingyu pouts when Wonwoo teases him under playful fingers. Simple yes' and no's are the only syllables that Wonwoo and Mingyu manage to receive from Seokmin, no matter what question they ask for him, and it makes Soonyoung feel sorry for him. Because Soonyoung probably knows that Seokmin caught on being the only android at the table. Sometimes, Soonyoung slips his hand under the table and traces a thumb over cold knuckles.

 

Lips stop moving and words don't leave anymore when a slender figure graces by, slips a hand on Seokmin's shoulder and passes a smile to him. Soonyoung catches the stiffness of Seokmin's shoulders giving way, widening and blank eyes softening when his eyes meet the barista's and the name tag spelling out _Junhui_.

 

Soonyoung's smile drops and his thumb stops moving and there's a break in the conversation that no one really knows how to piece back together.

 

 

The apartment remains quieter this time. Fingertip-punches of the keyboard clicks dully into Soonyoung's ears, but Seokmin mutters a, "You're pressing on the keys harder than usual, Soonyoung."

 

Soonyoung shakes his head, tries to disregard the way the barista's hand calmed Seokmin down better than his own. "As long as I'm typing, it's fine."

 

Later that night, after Soonyoung replaces Seokmin's oil and leaves him to discharge, Soonyoung sits at Seokmin's bed, drums a rhythm of his digits over Seokmin's chest. One drop starts to seep through, then another, until he's sobbing right next to Seokmin’s peaceful figure. He's so, so sorry for never being able to comfort Seokmin and it's when his chest starts to hurt right in the middle from trying to breathe and his eyes swell from trying to wipe at them does he finally let himself go. He brings his forehead down, right at the middle of Seokmin's chest, because he can't seem to keep himself up anymore.

 

He lets the whirring under his ear and the rhythm take him to sleep.

 

\----

 

Three laptops and a tablet are abandoned at the dinner table the next night. Wonwoo and Jihoon never really start discussing about strings of code to share and saving each other's fingers from bleeding any longer until Soonyoung suggests on getting food delivered to his apartment and no one complains about the night hours finding them fast.

 

Wonwoo leans against the kitchen counter, opening and closing cabinets and eyes widening when he discovers them well-stocked. "The fried chicken place is still open."

 

Jihoon doodles something on the notepad at the kitchen counter before ripping a page, crumbling it in his palms, and shooting it into the trash bin. "Or we can get pizza."

 

Soonyoung shrugs with a phone in his hand; it's not his phone, albeit, but it was the closest one in his reach. "I'll get both."

 

 

After a few slices of pizza and a discarded paper bucket later, Jihoon passes his laptop to Wonwoo, sighs hard, drags his palm across his face, and lets his fingertips hang onto the fatigue at his eye bags.

 

"I'm trying to get Junhui to pour a certain amount of espresso or milk, right?" Wonwoo nods at Jihoon's frustrated words. "But his hands kind of flinch when he's so close on pouring the right amount. Then the other day, I saw Jeonghan do it just fine at the cafe. What did you do?"

 

Soonyoung doesn't pay attention to Wonwoo's words because Wonwoo's own problems rest at his palms, with red error marks all over the screen. He scowls at what he assumes are typos and fixes them in hopes that they are the right corrections. Most of them are just closing off the notes Wonwoo wrote for himself that he forgot about. Even being named one of the best in his company, Soonyoung still doubts himself. Even when Wonwoo has been coding for this particular project much longer than Soonyoung, he still passes his codes under Soonyoung. "Wait, so you want Jeonghan to...what was it?"

 

It's all keyboard clicks palliating the confusion, layouts of possible solutions down to the millisecond, hesitant hovers of fingertips over the keys throughout the rest of the night. Occasionally, Wonwoo sneaks a hand into the box of pizza and Jihoon side-eyes Wonwoo fixing string after string on his own work.

 

"It's okay," Wonwoo assures him when he finally catches Jihoon's eyes quickly flitting back to Soonyoung's laptop in front of him, pretending he wasn't just watching Wonwoo correct every few lines of his code for Junhui. "You're pretty good for a first-year at the company. Most of them make way more mistakes than you do and if you didn't tell me, I would have thought you were in your second year."

 

The smile on Jihoon's face accompanies the draining hours until Wonwoo's phone rings, shocking the silence of tired sighs and rapid taps of the backspace button.

 

"Hello?" Wonwoo's voice cracks at the first syllable. Soonyoung and Jihoon nearly choke on the pizza they split in half still in their mouths as Wonwoo's ears blush pink. "Wait, Mingyu, hold on." Wonwoo distances the phone from his ear--Soonyoung can hear, from the other side of the table, the nervous spits of words Mingyu is trying to make out--and presses for the speaker button.

 

Mingyu's voice strains in a higher pitch. "I think I woke Jeonghan up."

 

Wonwoo's eyes fall on Soonyoung's because this isn't the first call like this, but it's probably the first for Jihoon. "Again?"

 

"Please come back. I think I tripped something. I don't know what, though."

 

Wonwoo packs his things, leaves with an apology for his clumsy boyfriend, but Soonyoung and Jihoon wave it off, tell him it's okay, _save your boyfriend from the trouble he might cause if you don't arrive at your home any time soon_. They decide to meet again at Wonwoo's place for the next meeting. They don't know when exactly, but that's how they usually do things.

 

Jihoon stands up and drops his bag onto the seat, slipping his laptop and tablet into his bag before sitting back in the mute with Soonyoung across the dinner table. Soonyoung stares at the ceiling, leaning forward with his chest digging into the edge of the table and his hands clasping from under their views.

 

"How have you been, Soonyoung?" Jihoon asks softly, taking each word out carefully.

 

Soonyoung sighs, straightens back up, and lets his hands flatten on the wood. He doesn't know where to start, if he was honest with himself. From the moment he proposed to recreating Seokmin from not flesh and bones but artificiality, scraps of metal he begged to use at first, old wires he stole from many older and rejected projects at the company, to the nights spent squeezing his eyes shut to make sure he gets some sleep, to holding Seokmin's hands one last time before even knowing it was his last time. "He's just too real," Soonyoung mouths out more than whispers.

 

Jihoon nods, leaves a hand over Soonyoung's, and lets him cry. Soonyoung's chest crushes so much and something at his temples pierce into his eyes harder than before and he's shaking hard, scratches of his voice shuddering from his throat as he cries, again, for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. It's not long before he's under Jihoon's arms, tear-coated words about how he misses Seokmin so, so much, how much this android breathes like an old life revived, how he wonders if the Seokmin here knows any old songs that helped Soonyoung to sleep, and if he could program him to do that same task.

 

"It's been so long, Jihoon," Soonyoung gasps, "so long since I could be able to sleep. It's just so hard to actually wake up," a hiccup punches his lungs, "without hearing him sing, without him telling me that tomorrow is a new day," a sob unwrenches from the back of his throat and if Seokmin was human, if Seokmin were really here right now, Soonyoung would have been worried about waking him up, "without him."

 

Time stands in a standstill, its hands locked with no motion. At least, that's what it all feels like to Soonyoung. Jihoon tells him that he's still sorry for him, that he'll still be there for him. When Soonyoung evens his breathing and can finally talk in full sentences uninterrupted, subtle shakes of his head, Jihoon tells Soonyoung that he will go now.

 

The meeting tomorrow is at six in the morning, is what Jihoon reminds him. "It feels later at night, though, even though it's only one in the morning."

 

Before Jihoon leaves, Soonyoung tells him that he will go to sleep after packing all of his bags and getting his suit ready.

 

Three in the morning isn't a friendly time for Soonyoung.

 

\----

 

"Hey, Seokmin," Soonyoung calls when Seokmin is about to step out of their bedroom door. Seokmin turns around as he places a hand on the handle. "Can you make coffee for Jihoon?"

 

Seokmin nods. "Yeah, sure."

 

Jihoon doesn't drink coffee unless it's made by Seokmin or Junhui. But if it's made my Junhui, Soonyoung knows that he programmed the android to make it the way Seokmin makes it. Soonyoung figured that out when Mingyu once offered to make Jihoon coffee and never asked him again after that. Something about the way Seokmin makes it "feels and tastes different from how anyone else makes it" and Jihoon calls Soonyoung a genius for coding Seokmin that way.

 

In reality, Soonyoung thought that the entire drink should be foamed, so he programmed Seokmin to stick the milk frother _after_ pouring in a warm shot of milk and let the coffee mix and bubble up. When Jihoon volunteered to be the taste tester, he raised his eyebrows, hummed in delight into the brim of the mug.

 

"I like it this way," a couple of slow sips, "but you're supposed to foam the milk only." Jihoon waved a hand when Soonyoung reached for his laptop to fix his mistake. It's not like he's an actual barista, anyway, so the critique didn't exactly hit him that hard. "No, keep it. I like the layer of foam that's not just the milk." After emptying the mug in one go, Jihoon glanced back at his tablet. "Maybe I should program Junhui that way."

 

 

Jihoon sits with Soonyoung during the entire meeting and sometimes, a hand sneaks and threads into his whenever the words "the deceased Lee Seokmin" slips into the discussion.

 

The first slide in the meeting displays the funding for each of the projects, and Soonyoung's heart drops at the funding under his name linking with Lee Seokmin, nearly twice as much as the number under Jeon Wonwoo's project, the next highest in funding in the company.

 

Soonyoung glances a tearful eye at Wonwoo and his mouth drops a slight, and never has Soonyoung felt so guilty. He mouths a _I'm sorry_ at Wonwoo because he knows Wonwoo has been going at this a lot longer than Soonyoung, bled his fingers typing and probably broke his back hunching over, but Wonwoo smiles, eyes softening, and mouths back a, _Don't be sorry_.

 

\----

 

Seokmin stacks wet dishes on the rack as the ringing of the phone dies out. "You got a voicemail from Seungkwan." Soonyoung heads over to his phone on the counter, flips through, and wonders why Seungkwan would call him. Months spread between Seungkwan's recent call and the last, and the two aren't particularly close. Seungkwan was actually one of the people who opposed of Soonyoung's project when he barely started in the company.

 

Seungkwan's voice warms his chest in a way that hasn't embraced him in a long while. _Hey, Soonyoung. It's a nice day to go to the beach, so if you want to come, call me back. You don't have to drive. I'll make Vernon drive the way there, and I'll drive the way back home. See you soon, hopefully._

 

Seokmin looks up from the dishes with wishful eyes, but the bed in their room begs for a movie and a few layers of blankets.

 

\----

 

Soonyoung places soft hands over Seokmin's chest, whispers a "Happy first birthday, Seokmin."

 

Seokmin places his hand over his chest with a small smile. "Thanks, Soonyoung."

 

Soonyoung leans down until he's lying on top of Seokmin and Seokmin runs lethargic hands through his hair. "Is there anything you want to do?"

 

"I want to go to the beach," echoes under Soonyoung's ears, throughout the cold metal inside Seokmin. "We didn't go to the beach with Seungkwan and Vernon, so I want to go today. To see the beach."

 

 

Seokmin wouldn't let go of his toothy smile as the sand digs into his toes and he sinks in deeper with each step. When Seokmin drags Soonyoung through the beach, right over cracks of long-forgotten seashells that the waves never bothered to return to, Soonyoung silently prays that Seokmin will finally hear the groans from his mouth and the cracks of shell-shards finding new homes into his skin.

 

When Seokmin does notice, though, and lifts Soonyoung away from the graveyard of shells and closer to the water, Soonyoung drags Seokmin into the water, lets the waves greet their toes cold before retreating back into the ocean. A strong wave sends the water at Soonyoung's knees and he yelps, runs back further into the sand, and Seokmin follows him right after with the same screech from his own lips.

 

\----

 

Seokmin pulls a chair up next to Soonyoung at his desk, his arm brushing Soonyoung's shoulders, and Soonyoung notices that it's been a while since Seokmin has ever sat behind the screen with him, and he rarely sits next to him while he works on something. "Hey, Soonyoung?"

 

Soonyoung's eyes never leave the screen. "Yeah?"

 

"If humans have a heart, then why do some humans call other humans heartless?"

 

Soonyoung's fingers pause, hang in the air, and tries to register where Seokmin would have heard that before. His digits twitch before he sets his hands on his lap. "Where did you get that idea?"

 

Seokmin scowls, almost like a small child. "I watched the news while you were at the meeting." Seokmin shifts in his seat and Soonyoung knows that this topic is making him uncomfortable, the words not matching up to what he has been taught. "And everyone was calling this man heartless for leaving his daughter alone in a train station."

 

\----

 

Soonyoung tugs Seokmin's hands back through the doors of the cafe, mutters the untouched sign at the front, and takes the usual seat next to the window, right under the cherry blossom tree beginning to bloom. Their digits linger together and Soonyoung looks up at Seokmin when the android can't stop scanning around, off to a certain barista brushing a hand back on his shoulder.

 

After a while, Soonyoung catches Jihoon in the back with the barista, talking with angry lips, not exactly frowning, but there's a sternness at his eyes and it's the first time he has seen Jihoon with a tint of anger in his veins.

 

"Junhui seems so real, like you," Seokmin mutters to his lap.

 

\----

 

Soonyoung nearly dry heaves during the meeting the next morning, when the slide lists off dates for the androids to finally be examined.

 

Jihoon runs a hand over Soonyoung's back without a word.

 

\----

 

Soonyoung slips a slow hand over Seokmin's chest, whisper a good morning before a, "It's time to visit my work."

 

 

The car ride there brandishes white across Soonyoung's knuckles over the steering wheel, his bottom lip caught under his teeth, and a bounce of his legs as they wait for the red light to turn green. At one point, between two red lights, Seokmin offers to drive instead, but Soonyoung swats his hand away.

 

Soonyoung doesn't turn to Seokmin, not even when the cars from the other direction drive past them, when he releases the tight grip of his hands and relaxes his jaws one millimeter at a time. His heart beats hard against his chest and his head leans closer to the window.

 

He takes each word slowly, dreads at every second to tell Seokmin what will be going on in a few hours. "They will watch you very closely. They'll have tablets out to record everything you do. They want to see your reaction to everything and anything.”

 

If Seokmin ever opened his mouth to speak, Soonyoung wouldn't have noticed. "You'll be put in a room, I actually don't know what will be in the room, but they will ask you questions, tell you to do things, I don't know what, but they just want to see how much you can do."

 

It's the first time Soonyoung turns his eyes to Seokmin since they closed the doors and he started up his car, and he watches Seokmin nod, looking out the window to his side. "Will there be other androids in there, too?"

 

"Yeah, but they won't be in the room with you."

 

Green light.

 

Seokmin looks to Soonyoung's hand on the steering wheel. "Will you be in the room with me?"

 

Soonyoung almost doesn’t answer, shakes his head, tightens the grip back on the steering wheel. "No, I won't. I can't be there."

 

 

Past the security guards granting him permission back into the building reaching for the clouds, Soonyoung holds Seokmin's hand along the way. Doors after doors flashing one digit off each time, the same monochrome design across glass and metal, from one section to another, until Soonyoung finally finds the elevator on this first floor.

 

Seokmin's hand tightens around Soonyoung's. "Your hand is sweaty."

 

At that, Soonyoung notices the perspiration nearly dripping onto the tiles and tugs his hand away. "Let go of it."

 

"No, don't," Seokmin mutters. "No, you're nervous. You like it better when I hold your hand."

 

\----

 

Soonyoung releases Seokmin's hand when a woman with a white coat walks up to the two, heels clicking and echoing into the void of some desk in the middle of the room.

 

Everything washes new to him, from the tablets lining flat across a wall and each flashing a name and a quick line of numbers. Doors down the hallways, stretching from each direction of the center desk, would bleed into transparency when a white coat enters into a room with a single person already sitting inside, ready for others to observe from outside.

 

Soonyoung decides to walk around when Seokmin is escorted somewhere, and for once, breathe in all of his years of sitting at the laptop screen with Seokmin malfunctioning in one way or another. He passes down the hall, eyes skidding through glances of other robots doing mundane things.

 

He stops when he finds Junhui in the middle of a simulated cafe, staring down the small pitcher and pouring milk into a small mug in his hands. When he watches the man in the white coat nod a slight once, twice, he continues down the hall a couple of steps to Jeonghan's room right next door.

 

He watches Jeonghan in the snow and a hologram floating above him, a picture of men around a table made out of snow. Jeonghan, with his back facing the door, looks up at the hologram with a shovel in his hand, and starts digging into the white.

 

\----

 

Seokmin doesn't even hum a syllable when they're inside the car and silence stabs at Soonyoung. Seokmin is rarely silent and he wonders what happened during the exam.

 

"How did the exam go?" Soonyoung is uncertain to open up.

 

"They just asked me a lot of questions," Seokmin barely whispers. "I even watched the news."

 

Soonyoung nods, starts spitting about almost falling asleep while watching Junhui make coffee, about skipping over the other robots and remembering nothing in particular about anyone else’s examination, about Jeonghan caught in a task in the middle of the snow.

 

\----

 

The next week consists of Soonyoung trying to conjure a word from Seokmin, but Seokmin just follows him around, keeps his answers short, and disappears from the apartment without stopping. By the end of the week, the first words Seokmin tells Soonyoung punches him in the gut the hardest, abandons him wanting to disappear from the apartment himself.

 

"Will you dance for me?" Seokmin's words weigh thick into the air before continuing on. "I know it's been a long time, but I just want to see."

 

Soonyoung's mouth works for an answer that he's not ready for yet. "How did you know?"

 

Seokmin tilts his head down at the floor, and Soonyoung notices the almost-nervous taps of his toes on the wooden slabs. "When we went to your work, when they examined me, they showed me an old picture and video from years ago. Before you made me."

 

Soonyoung sits back at his seat, stares at his hands on his lap, because out of any way Seokmin had to find out, it had to be like this. They couldn't give him a more gentle way to let him know, wouldn't let him live past two years in the making before finding out why he was even made in the first place.

 

The chair screeches against the floor and it takes a lot of Soonyoung's will to just stand up and ignore the aches at his legs.

 

Soonyoung dances, exactly like the performance from years ago, but he feels the drags that he no longer has the hard grace and light steps his students once admired him for, the cut-throat sharpness of his fingertips into the air. He dances with a slight stumble at his feet, and when he gets to the part of the routine where he brings himself to his knees, he drops, and the thud against the floor rings harder in his ears than the pain shooting up his thighs and straight to his heart.

 

He drops, all at once, and catches his breath before his tears.

 

 ____

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from the last part of [Emologue by Epik High](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PZWFDo-4DI)  
> the cafe is inspired by the anime called [Time of Eve](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CrNNs-37As)  
> thanks for getting through the fic and down to this point! c:


End file.
